The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) has established 59 technology business incubation (TBI) facilities across the country, helping startups develop their concepts, make them transferable and ready to get commercialized.

“We are just happy with the current figures that we are getting and we wanted to see to it that we consistently provide opportunities not only for the startups but also the enablers so that everybody contributes to the development and the success of our startups,” said Dr. Enrico Paringit, Executive Director of the DOST- Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD), in a press conference at the sidelines of the 7th TBI Summit held here on Tuesday.

Paringit said startups are prioritized because they want to provide them with a platform that will allow them to design their business models and prototypes to have the right fit in the market.

“We are willing to put a bit of investment into that so we will together see the fruits of their ideas coming through,” he added.

One significant mark of the summit was the launching and signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) of the expanded Regional Startup Enablers for Ecosystem Development (ReSEED) Program, where the DOST-PCIEERD invested PHP120 million to support TBIs in spearheading the formation and formalization of startup ecosystem consortium in the country’s 16 regions.

Russel Pili, chief of the DOST- PCIEERD Research Information and Technology Transfer Division, said it started with the idea of inviting other partners and not just incubators to help startups, including local governments, universities and private partners, among others.

“We have incubators, their job is actually to nurture and transform ideas into business ideas. But you need all the partners in the ecosystem to make them viable ideas,” she said in an interview. (PNA)